18 Jan
2005
18 Jan
'05
4:45 a.m.
At 18:58 -0600 1/17/05, Dwight wrote:
Hi
I thought I'd pass on some info about these batteries.
I received a laptop with a "dead" battery. The voltage
as read from a meter was "0" volts. I mean dead!
I first stuck it into the laptop but quickly noticed
the smell of hot resistors ( bad idea ).
I second the "bad idea" notation. I have had one (count it) one
failure on a heavily used Powerbook 3400 I've had as my primary
computer since they first came out (about 6 years, extensive airline
travel, etc.)
That was when I took a discharged NiMH battery (had been on the shelf
for 3-4 years), put it into the machine with the machine plugged in,
and ran the battery-cycling program Apple offered for the 5300 and
3400.
Battery started to charge (maybe 20 seconds), I pulled wall power (as
instructed), machine went down hard with an ugly noise and stayed
down until it got a new power supply board. I didn't see the old one,
but I'm morally certain the escape of some magic smoke was involved.
Since then I've been very very careful to deal with near-dead NiMH
batteries using a non-critical piece of hardware, rather than a
built-in charger.
However, same laptop and same battery are still giving good service
(my secondary machine, now) so I guess I second the below as well.
Moral of the story, don't give up on these
batteries.
They are remarkably tough. Most NiCads batteries would
not recover from such a level.
Dwight
--
- Mark
210-522-6025, temporary cell 240-375-2995